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COMMEMORATION 



BATTLE OF HARLEM PLAINS 



ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 




NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 

M DCCC LXXVI. 



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THE BATTLE OF HARLEM PLAINS 



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O RAT I O N 



BEFORE THE 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



September i6, 1876 



JOHN JAY. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLrSHED BY THE SOCIETY. 

M DCCC LXXVI. 



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New York Historical Society, 

170 Second Avenue, New York City, 

June 26th, 1S76. 

Hon. John Jay, Bedford. 

Dear Sir : — The Society has resolved upon xa out-door celebration of the 
hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Harlem Plains, the i6th of September next. 
The gathering will be in the neighborhood of the scene of action, and it is intended 
to have a military pageant and an oration. 

It is the wish of the committee that the oration should be delivered by some 
New York gentleman, and our eyes naturally turn to you as a representative of 
old New York. I am instructed to earnestly request that you will undertake this 
duty, and to add that the resources of this Library will be placed at your disposal 
for any historical research you may desire to make in the preparation of an address. 
I am very truly your obedient servant, 

JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, 

Chairman of Committee on Celebrations. 



Bedford House, Katonah, 

New York, July ist, 1876. 

John Austin Stevens, Esq., 

Chairman Committee of the New York Historical Society. 

Dear Sir : — I beg to acknowledge your note of the 26th of June courteously 
advising me that I have been chosen to deliver the oration at an out-door cele- 
bration by the Historical Society of the Battle of Harlem Plains on its hundredth 
anniversary, the i6th of September, the gathering to be in the neighborhood of 
the scene of action, with a military pageant. 

I accept, sir, with thanks, the distinguished honor thus conferred upon me, and 
which your committee so kindly ask me to accept ; and I will undertake the task 
with somewliat less of diffidence from the obliging assurance of your committee 
that the resources of the Library will be placed at my disposal for any aid I may 
require. 

Will you permit me to invoke your kind assistance and that of the Librarian in 
indicating the volumes and MSS. that bear upon the subject, as my own familiarity 
with the Library is not now what it was in former years when I had the pleasure 
of serving in the management. 

I have the honor to be, dear sir, faithfully yours, 

JOHN JAY. 



COMMEMORATIVE ORATION. 



Mr. President, Fellow-Countrymen, Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen : 

Our Centennial year, fraught with cherished memories, has 
brought us to the anniversary of the spirited engagements 
which tooli place on the heights and plains around us an hun- 
dred years ago, between some of the Continental troops under 
the command of Washington, and a part of the British army 
under Sir William Howe. The action for the American army 
and the American cause had a great significance. Our troops 
engaged in it represented all sections — Virginia, Maryland, 
Pennsylvania, New York, and New England — indicating the 
common ties that have bound us in a common destiny, and 
recalling the generous thought of Patrick Henry, when he 
said, " I am not a Virginian — I am an. American." 

It was the first success of the Americans in the New York 
campaign, and it occurred at a moment when both ofiicers 
and men were discouraged by disaster and retreat, and mor- 
tified and alarmed at an exhibition of panic the day before, 
which had wounded their self-respect, and impaired their 
courage and their hopes. 

It developed the bravery and spirit of our newly levied 
troops, and their ability, when fairly led, to meet in the open 
field the flower of the English army and the trained veterans 
of the Continent. It inspired with new ardor the Commander- 
in-chief, his officers and men, and it thus became an important 
link in that chain of events, military and civil, which, by the 
wisdom of Washington and the help of God, established, after 
a seven years' struggle, our Union and our Independence. 
The New York Historical Society, which is faithfully prose- 
cuting the work on which it entered seventy-two years ago, 
under the presidency of Egbert Benson, whom some of us well 
remember, of rescuing from forgetfulness and decay the fleet- 



8 Commemorative Oration, 

ing reminiscences of our historic times, has brought us to-day 
to this pleasant spot where the fast advancing city has but 
partially changed the natural features so bold and picturesque 
which marked it a century ago ; on those Heights the army 
of Washington was encamped, and here you look upon the 
field of battle. The occasion is fitly graced by this brilliant 
assemblage, including our distinguished and welcome guests, 
and by our gallant Seventh Regiment, of which New York 
is justly proud — that school of soldiers which in our late war 
furnished more than six hundred officers to the army and 
navy of the United States. 

When I ventured to accept the duty with which I have 
been honored, of addressing you on this occasion, I recalled 
the touching words of Lincoln at Gettysburg, when, alluding 
to the brave men by whom that great battle had been won, 
he said, "The world will little note nor long remember what 
we say here ; but it can never forget what they did here." I 
felt that the sacred memories invoked by the scene would 
appeal to your imaginations and your hearts with an elo- 
quence of their own, and that you would kindly accept some 
thoughts suggested by the day and a simple narrative of the 
battle. 

Practical as may be the character, active as is the life of our 
countrymen, theirs is not the frigid philosophy denounced by 
the English moralist which might conduct one unmoved over 
ground consecrated by wisdom, bravery, and virtue. If, as 
Dr. Johnson observed, that man is little to be envied whose 
patriotism would not gain force upon the plains of Marathon, 
or whose piety would not burn brighter amid the ruins of 
lona : the American, could he be found, would be still less 
to be envied, whose patriotism at this Centennial season would 
not be refreshed on the battle-fields of the Revolution, where 
our independence was won under the lead of \yashington. 

If Marathon and lona inspire touching memories of a dead 
past, our revolutionary scenes, whilst they also remind us 
of ages that are gone, are linked with a living present, and 
an impending and limitless future. 

In America, too, each citizen shares the sovereignty of the 



Commemorative Oration. 9 

people, to whose wisdom and virtue are committed from 
generation to generation the character and destiny of the 
Republic ; and this thought enhances the personal interest of 
each in the past of the country whose great future we are 
moulding and carving and determining to-day. 

It has been said that those will not look forward to pos- 
terity who do not look back to their ancestors. We are 
accustomed as a nation to do the one and the other, and the 
habit strengthens as we advance. No story was more fasci- 
nating to our childhood than that of America — -its discovery 
by Columbus, the adventurous navigators who followed in 
his steps, its settlement by colonists from every part of 
Europe with their varied languages, characteristics, and 
traditions, bringing with them the promise and the power of 
that magnificent age of European advancement, of which 
there has recently been given us, with unrivalled skill, so 
striking a picture. 

We trace the rough progress of the colonists in their battles 
with the wilderness, with the Indians, and with each other, 
up to the heroic story of our Revolution, which still grows in 
interest as we read it anew in the thoughtful and brilliant 
page of Bancroft. 

Our interest was attended by the thought that the Republic 
which had grown from those long processions across the sea, 
and nearly two centuries of preparation, was, as Burke 
declared, a new power, which, in its relations to the rest of 
the world, might be compared to a new planet with its dis- 
turbing influences suddenly appearing in the solar system. 

The prediction in other lands that the Republic might 
prove rather an erratic comet that would vanish in space, 
or a baneful meteor, whose brief splendor would expire 
in darkness, was thought in Europe likely to be accomplished 
by the recent convulsion that threatened to terminate our 
national career. The result of that contest has crowned the 
accomplishments of our first century with the conviction, that 
neither foreign power nor internal strife can reach the life of 
the Republic ; but that it contains within itself moral elements 
of stability and permanence which were utterly discredited 



10 Commemorative Oration. 

by other nations, and were but partially appreciated among 
ourselves. 

In this view our Centennial commemoration becomes more 
than a sentimental expression ; it marks the entering of the 
Republic upon a new epoch, no longer as a doubtful experi- 
ment, but as a fixed fact — a power of continental boundaries, 
of limitless resources, of unmeasured energy, of schools and 
churches, and universal freedom, more closely united than 
ever before on a basis of equal rights and mutual interests, 
and with no lingering element of sectional discord to again 
disturb its harmony. 

Other anticipations, where the wish was father to the 
thought, were indulged in across the water by those who 
hastened to announce our national dissolution, and to hail it 
as a " blessing and a boon." They dreamed that the Ameri- 
can Union was broken, that " the bubble of democracy was 
burst," and that it would devolve on the European powers 
whom we had dismissed from our territories to re-enter them 
once more, to save the remnants from destruction. France 
wrote, an officer of the old empire would retake the ter- 
ritory of Orleans ; England might appropriate Oregon, the 
State of Maine, and the harbor of Portland ; Mexico, under 
foreign protection, would reclaim New Mexico, Texas, and 
California ; wliile an Austrian prince from the throne of the 
Montezumas would look upon the distribution of the effects 
of the defunct Republic, and lend his imperial countenance to 
the system of perpetual slavery that was expected to flourish 
amid its ruins. 

The heart of the nation may well beat high with joy and 
thankfulness, as our Centennial sees the gathering of the na- 
tions at Philadelphia, not to sing our requiem and divide 
our heritage, but bringing their congratulations and their 
treasures to lend magnificence to the birth-year of the re- 
public. 

Having dismissed to their homes her army of a million, 
and retained for the protection of the Republic some 25,000 
men, less than the garrison of an European capital, she cor- 
dially greets in friendly rivalry her welcome guests in a way 



Commemorative Oration. ii 

to assure them that if " Westward the Star of Empire takes 
its way," our Star of Empire is the harbinger of peace. 

Our Centennial is teaching us the unity of history by the 
most striking of lessons, as Egypt leads the throng, mother of 
civilization, with her untold ages of hoar antiquity — the land 
of the Pharaohs and the Pyramids ; of the Nile and of the 
Sphinx, with scriptural memories of Abram and Sarah, of 
Joseph and his brethren, when the great pyramid had been 
standing some 2,000 years ; of the second Joseph, the mother 
and the Child, recalling Memphis and Thebes, Rameses and 
Cambyses, with dim thoughts of Tyre and Sidon and Baby- 
lon, as shadowed forth by Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Egypt, 
which in her remote origin was a sphinx to the ancient Greeks, 
brings from the East with oriental courtesy her greeting and 
her gifts. She salutes us as of old the statue of Memnon 
greeted the rising sun ; and as we read the message written 
on her pcrtals at Fairmount, " The oldest people sends her 
morning greeting to the youngest nation," we feel that our 
youthful Republic, child of the brightest centuries of Euro- 
pean development, is akin to all the nations and heir to the 
culture of all the ages. 

There is one pleasant thought connected with the Centen- 
nial, — pleasant in every aspect and in its significance to the 
world at large, of which we are naturally reminded as we 
recall the battle here fought between England and America, 
— the thought that the Revolution which severed our political 
connection with the British crown, has enlarged our relations 
and confirmed our friendship with the British people. 

Nothing could have so crowned our majestic celebration, 
ordained by Congress and proclaimed by the President — the 
nation commemorating its founders and the world assisting at 
the fete — as the magnanimity, worthy of the Anglo-Saxon 
race, and which America will not soon forget, with which 
England deputed her accomplished and honored Envoy at 
Washington to represent the British Empire at the ceremonies 
in honor of the birth-year of the Republic. 

Wars that are provoked by passion or ambition may 
produce new storms of international hate, to desolate in turn 



12 Commemorative Oration. 

successive generations ; but with wars that result from the 
antagonism of principles and systems, after the lightning and 
the crash may come the clear sky, while nature smiles with 
freshened verdure, teaching us that in the Divine Economy 
it is often the conflict of discordant powers that produces 
the harmony of the universe. 

Touching the dispute between England and her colonies, 
which Englishmen and Americans can now discuss with calm 
philosophy, there is one fact creditable alike to both parties 
and essential to a correct appreciation of the position, which 
has been curiously ignored, even in recent discussions of the 
question on both sides the Atlantic. The impression still 
obtains in various quarters, that for many years previous to 
the Revolution a desire for independence had been growing 
in the Colonies, and that when the struggle was entered upon 
the American leaders aimed at a separation. Jefferson on the 
contrary declared : 

" It is well known that in July, I775i ^ separation from 
Great Britain and establishment of republican government 
had never yet entered into any person's mind." The accur- 
acy of that statement was in accord with the assurance given 
by Franklin in August, 1774, to Lord Chatham, that he 
" never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk 
or sober, the least expression of a wish for separation," and 
it was distinctly confirmed by the testimony of John ^\danis, 
who added, his sturdy patriotism giving significance to there- 
mark : " For my own part, there was not a moment during the 
Revolution when I would not have given everything I possessed, 
for a restoration to the state of things before the contest be- 
gan, provided we could have had sufficient security for its 
continuance." The character of the ties that attached the 
Colonies to England was too little appreciated at the Court of 
St. James ; and Lord Russell, in his Life of Charles James 
Fox, remarked that " it was the peculiar infelicity of George 
the in. and Lord North, that they turned to gall all those 
feelings of filial piety which had so long filled the breasts of 
Americans." 

The principles on which our fathers resisted the powers 



Commemorative Oration. 13 

assumed by Great Britain, are still occasionally criticised in 
that country, but it can never be forgotten that the State 
papers developing their views commanded the approval, even 
the homage of the great Lord Chatham. 

With the impressive diction that marked his transcendent 
oratory, he said in words that can bear to be repeated, but 
not to be abridged : 

" For myself, I must declare and avow that in all my read- 
ing and observation, and it has been my favorite study — I 
have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the 
master states of the world — for solidity of reasoning, force of 
sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under such a complication 
of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand 
in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia." 

That Chatham, who as William Pitt had been the great 
Commoner of England, the expounder of the popular features 
of the British Constitution, the most powerful orator of 
modern times, whose "character had astonished a corrupt 
age," found the statesmanship of the Continental Congress 
to surpass that of the master states of ancient and of modern 
times, is a noteworthy incident, as we review after the lapse 
of a century, the full development of that political capacity 
whose early exhibition at Philadelphia called forth that gener- 
ous tribute from the foremost statesman of Great Britain. 

Turning a deaf ear to the advice and warnings of Chatham 
and of Burke, who stood on the American question like 
"guide-posts and land-marks in the state," the ministry 
adhered to the principle of the act, which said — what an his- 
toric lesson it teaches to-day — " It is expedient to raise a 
revenue in America." 

On the soundness of that proposition the ministry deliber- 
ately staked the dignity of the Crown and the integrity of 
the Kingdom. 

Dr. Johnson, in his "Taxation no Tyranny," ignoring the 
principles and the characteristics of the American Colonists, and 
the fact that their ancestors in every country of Europe had 
been accustomed to resist oppression, anticipated as the 
result of the struggle, " English superiority and American 



14 Commemorative Oration. 

obedience," nor dreamed that he was assisting in tlie dismem- 
berment of the British Empire and the erection of an 
American Republic. 

Never was a ministry trifling witli tlie interests and-lu)»or 
of a great nation more frankly and fearlessly warned, and the 
speeches of Chatham on the American question show the 
difference between the true statesman, maintaining the truth 
with outspoken independence against an obstinate king, a 
convenient ministry, anda subservient parliament; and supple 
courtiers who bend the knee where thrift may follow fawning, 
and sustain with unquestioning acquiescence governmental 
policies that assail the morality and the dignity of the nation. 

" My Lords," said Chatham, and his words may be repeated 
from age to age in every country, " this ruinous and igno- 
minious situation, where we cannot act with success nor suffer 
with honor, calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest 
language, to rescue the ear of majesty from the delusions 
which surround it." 

When, after the rejection of their second petition. Congress 
resolved upon the necessity of separation, and declared the 
inalienable rights which formed tiie basis of its action, the 
great truths which it announced, if thought strange and novel 
in Europe, had little of novelty in America. They were here 
regarded not as something newly discovered, but old as the 
creation, written in the Bible, uttered by others than 
Christian philosophers from Aristotle to Locke, — truths which 
had descended from their ancestors among the Hollanders, the 
Walloons, the French Huguenots, the English, the Irish and 
the Scotch, the Swedes, the Germans, and the Swiss, the 
Bohemian Protestants, the Italian Waldenses, the Salzburg 
exiles, the Moravian Brothers, and refugees from the Palati- 
nate, Alsace, and Southern Germany. 

They were rights that had been asserted and battled for in 
England by those who believed in the enjoyment of personal 
and religious freedom : which had animated the great charter 
wrested from John : which had inspired the Petition of Right : 
which had been reduced to practice in the English Revolution : 
which were the proper heritage of the colonists from their 



Commemorative Oration. 1 5 

earnest, freedom-loving, stout-hearted sires: truths self-evi- 
dent, "the unassuming commonplace of nature." 

When at our centennial commemoration of the Declaration 
of Independence at Philadelphia, ordained by Congress to be 
held under the auspices of the Government, and assisted in 
by the Powers invited by the President, with the illustrious 
Emperor of Brazil and a royal prince of Sweden, presenting 
a scene unique in its political significance and its historic 
associations, our acting Vice-President, Mr. Ferry, remarking 
that the regretful absence of the President had cast upon 
him the honor of presiding on that eventful occasion, said 
that the heroic statesmen who had there chosen between 
royal rule and popular sovereignty had been inspired, in their 
declaration that all men are born free and equal, by the truth 
uttered on Mars Hill that God hath made of one blood all 
nations of men. The religious sentiment thus alluded to by 
the Vice-President has been recognized by the most philo- 
sophic writers in America, as having lain at the root of the 
governmental theories as well as of the social characteristics 
of the colonists. Burke, in the greatest of his speeches on 
America — that on conciliation — referred to the stream of 
foreigners which had flowed into the colonies as being for the 
greatest part composed of dissenters from the establishments 
of their respective countries; and soon after that speech, and 
a week before Congress was driven from Philadelphia, that 
body ordered an importation of twenty thousand Bibles for 
its constituents, at the public expense. 

An interesting example of the recognition of the divine 
rights of people, by the government of Holland, the parent 
state of this part of our country, and of whom we are 
reminded by these Harlem plains, is found in the reply of the 
States General to the request of Great Britain for troops to 
assist in the subjugation of the rebellious Americans. 

It was in December, 1775, that Derk van der Cappel — 
may his name be cherished — declared, in answer to the 
British demand for troops, that "the Americans were worthy 
of every man's esteem — a brave people, defending in a 
manly and religious manner those rights which, as men, they 



1 6 Commemorative Oration. 

derive from God, and not from the Legislature of Great 
Britain." 

It was the fine thought of Bryant in his Ode to Freedom — 

Thy birthrijjht was not given by human hands ; 
Thou wort twin-born with man. 

But we may not linger on the civil questions involved in 
our Declaration which have already been treated in our recent 
centennial orations with so much of learning, eloquence, and 
deep philosophy, by statesmen, jurists, diplomatists, and 
divines. 

The military question to which this battle scene recalls us 
was, in fact, the question on which our success in the war 
immediately depended ; for that success hung not alone on 
the soundness of our political theories, but on our ability to 
defeat the armies and fleets of Great Britain, then in the 
height of her pride and the most powerful government in the 
world. 

We began the struggle with no certainty of any foreign aid, 
and so unequal seemed the contest that Vergennes, the Min- 
ister of Louis XVL, assured our envoys that it would not be 
safe for France and America together to attempt to match 
England, unless they were assisted by other powers. This 
inequality must be remembered if we would appreciate aright 
the importance of the battle fought on this spot an hundred 
years ago. The Declaration of Independence but just 
adopted, closing the door to conciliation and compromise, 
had alienated our friends in England. France had not yet 
become our ally. There had not yet come to us the gallant 
and generous Lafayette, of whom Washington wrote: "Treat 
him as though he were my own son." We had not yet wel- 
comed to our camp and to our hearts Kosciusko, whose 
soldierly fame lives alike in Europe and America ; nor Steu- 
ben, who had learned the art of war under the great Frede- 
rick ; nor De Kalb, who had served with the French and 
who fell at Camden with eleven wounds ; nor Rochambeau, 
with his brave command of six thousand men, who was made 
Marshal of France for his services at Yorktown, and who 



Coiinneinorative Oration. 17 

brought in his gallant train such men as D'Estaing, Du Por- 
tail, De Choise, Deuxponts, Custine, De Noailles, Montmo- 
renci, De Grasse, Lauzun, St. Simon, De Broglie, Berthier, 
Scgur, and Montesquieu. 

The 1st of January, 1776, opened gloomily, with the defeat 
at Quebec and the death of the brave Montgomery. In 
March, the British had evacuated Boston. In April, Wash- 
ington had arrived in New York. On the 2d of July, Con- 
gress had resolved on separation, and on the 9th the New 
York Convention at White Plains had given, as Sparks happily 
said, the finishing stroke to the Declaration of Independence, 
which that evening was read at the head of each brigade 
of the army, and the same night the leaden statue of George 
III. in the Bowling Green was broken up and run into bullets. 
Presently arrived in the Hudson two British ships, and a 
third with the Admiral's flag of Lord Howe. Soon the High- 
landers, Hessians and other troops began to be landed at 
Staten Island. The British force near New York amounted to 
30,000 men. That of the Americans was less than 20,000, 
imperfectly equipped and armed, composed in part of" hasty 
levies of countrymen." The yeomen summoned from the 
plough, and destitute of arms, were ordered to bring with 
them a shovel, spade, or pickaxe, or a scythe straightened and 
fastened to a pole. 

On the 27th of August was fought the disastrous battle of 
Long Island. Two nights afterwards, on the 29th, was 
effected the masterly retreat of Washington from Brooklyn to 
New York, one of the most signal achievements of the war, 
and perhaps unsurpassed in military history, by which " 9,000 
men with their munitions of war, were successfully withdrawn 
from before a victorious enemy, encamped so near that every 
stroke of spade and pickaxe from their trenches could be 
heard." 

On the 2d of September, Washington wrote to Congress 
that the situation was truly distressing ; that the check on the 
27th had filled the troops with apprehension and despair ; that 
they were dismayed, intractable, and impatient to return ; and 
that great numbers had gone off, " in some instances almost 



1 8 Commemorative Oration. 

by whole regiments, by half ones, and by companies at a 
time." 

A council of general officers had decided with regret that it 
would be necessary to evacuate New York, which Washington 
said had become the grand magazine of America. Put- 
nam was stationed in the city with only 5,000 men, while 
General Heath with 9,000 men was to guard the upper part 
of the island and oppose any attempt of the enemy to land. 
On the 13th of September three frigates and a British man-of- 
war sailed up the East river towards Hell-gate, firing as they 
passed. On Saturday, the 14th, Washington's baggage was 
removed to his new headquarters at Kingsbridge. It was 
now clear that the enemy were preparing to encompass our 
army on the island, and their landing at Harlem or Morrisania 
was apprehended. But the evening passed quietly, excepting 
that six more ships had moved up the East River. 

On the morning of Sunday, the 15th of September, three 
British ships of war were sent up the North River with " a 
most tremendous firing," as far as Bloomingdale, with the in- 
tention, as appears from Sir William Howe's report, of draw- 
ing the attention of the Americans in that direction. At 11 
o'clock the real business of the day commenced by a cannon- 
ade from throe frigates and two forty-gun ships, which were 
drawn up in line in the East River, upon the American 
breastworks near Kip's Bay. Under cover of this fire was 
landed the first division of the British army, consisting of the 
Light Infantry, the British Reserve, the Hessian Grenadiers 
and Chasseurs, under the command of Lt.-Gen. Sii Henry 
Clinton, who had with him Lt.- General Cornwallis, Major- 
General Vaughan, Brigadier-General Leslie, and Col. Donop. 
"The fire of the shipping," wrote Sir Wm. Howe to Lord 
Germaine, "being so well directed and so incessant, the 
enemy could not remain in their works, and the descent was 
made without the least opposition." 

This statement is not without interest as tending to explain 
the panic which seized the militia by whom the works were 
manned, and who had already been disheartened by the de- 
feat at Brooklyn, and perhaps also that of the two brigades 



Commemorative Oration. 19 

who had been sent to support them, and who fled at the ap- 
pearance of some sixty or seventy of the British troops. 
Washington, who had come galloping down at the first sound 
of the cannonade, met them in their flight, and strove in vain 
to rally them. He is said to have been passionately moved 
by their cowardice, which he reported to Congress and de- 
nounced by general order. Recovering his self-possession, 
he despatched an order for the instant occupation of Harlem 
Heights, and another for the immediate retreat of Putnam. 

There is one incident connected with Putnam's retreat 
which, although often related, cannot properly be omitted in 
a centennial mention of that eventful day. 

Sir Wm. Howe, in his letter of September 2ist, to Lord 
George Germaine, after describing the landing at Kip's Bay, 
said : " The British immediately took post on the command- 
ing height of Inclenberg ; " but Sir William omitted to advise 
his Lordship of the disposition of his staff on their arrival at 
that point, to which the American officers were accustomed to 
attribute the safety of Gen. Putnam's command, the loss of 
which at that stage of the war might have had a serious influ- 
ence on the military situation. 

On "the commanding height of Liclenberg," now known 
more modestly as Murray Hill, resided Robert Murray whose 
wife Mary Lindley Murray — all honor to her memory — in 
theabsence of her husband invited Sir William and his officers, 
as they approached her residence, to stop for lunch. A halt 
was ordered and the invitation accepted. The unaccustomed 
heat and their morning's work seem to have prepared the 
commander-in-chief and his officers, who were accompanied 
by his Excellency Gov. Tryon, to enjoy the proffered rest 
and repast. In cheerful mood after their successful landing, 
and refreshed with the generous wine, they bantered their 
hostess with British bluntness on her rebel sympathies, and 
Mrs. Murray responded with such graceful tact and pleasant 
humor, that two hours or more were whiled away before 
they had concluded their regale. During that precious time, 
Putnam and his command, in their straggling and disorderly 
retreat along the Bloomingdale road, had passed in safety 



20 Commemorative Oration. 

within a mile of the comfortable parlors where the illustrious 
generals, who were to conquer America, quaffed with appre- 
ciation the old Madeira, jested complacently at the discom- 
fiture of the rebels, and unconsciously measured the military 
prudence of the Royal staff with the patriotic wit of an Ameri- 
can woman. One mile's march during that pleasant lunch 
would have cut off Putnam's advance or cut it in two, and a 
little later, when he had passed, the 42d Highlanders moved 
towards Bloomingdale " to intercept the retreating Ameri- 
cans." 

Putnam's command, after a weary march, joined the army 
in the evening on Harlem Heights, where Washington had 
made his headquarters at the house of Colonel Roger Morris, 
at that time an adherent of Royal cause, formerly his com- 
panion in Hraddock's campaign, and his successful competitor 
for the hand of Mary Philipse. This house, overlooking the 
Harlem River, and commanding an extensive and varied view, 
is now known as the Jumel Place, and here in later years 
resided for a time Col. Aaron Burr, after his marriage with 
Madame, the widow Jumel. About a mile to the north was 
the height of Mount Washington crowned with an earthwork 
mounting thirty cannon. On the heights, at this period, com- 
menced the intercourse of Washington with Alexander Ham- 
ilton, a young captain of artillery, whose skill in the construc- 
tion of some of the defences had attracted the attention of the 
commander-in-chief, and whose splendid abilities as exhibited 
in the work of the National Constitution and the restoration 
of the national credit were soon to command the attention of 
the world. 

The headquarters of the British Commander General, Sir 
William Howe, were at the house of Mr. Apthorpe, which 
stands near the corner of Ninth avenue and Ninety-first street, 
and is now known as Elm Park. The encampment of the 
British extended from the East River, where General Howe's 
right rested on Horen's Hook near Eighty-ninth street, to the 
North River where his left was at Bloomingdale, the distance 
being about two miles and both flanks being covered by his 



Commemorative Oration. 21 

ships. The encampment extended from the fourth to the 
eighth mile-stone. 

On the heights occupied by the Americans, between the 
ninth and tenth mile-stones, southwest of the Roger Morris 
House, our troops were preparing to form the lines afterwards 
completed between the Hudson River on the west and the 
Harlem river on the east, over a broken surface with breast- 
works, entrenchments and abatis. 

Here it was intended " to make a grand stand." Both 
sides of the King's Bridge were carefully fortified, making 
this the strongest point. The division of the army lying near 
the Roger Morris House extended southwardly to near the 
Hollow Way running from Harlem Plain to the Hudson River 
at the site of the present Manhattanville, a natural break be- 
tween the Harlem and the Bloomingdale Heights. Between 
the Point of Rocks (the southern extremity of the Harlem 
Heights, now being cut away, the property of the Convent of 
Sacred Heart), and McGowan's Pass at the northern extremity 
of the Central Park, and lying on the eastward of Bloomingdale 
Heights, intervened a low ground known as the Harlem Plain. 
The Point of Rocks at One Hundred and Twenty-seventh street 
was the advance post of the American army, and on the hill 
slope below McGowan's Pass, at One Hundred and Ninth 
street, a mile and a half distant was the advance post of the 
British army. The picket lines of each army extended be- 
yond these points into the plains and along the ridge which 
overlooked them. As night closed around the two armies 
on the opposing heights, a cold driving rain succeeded to 
the sultry heat of the morning, and the contrast between the 
thorough equipment of the British troops and the half-clad 
unsheltered condition of the Americans, without tents or 
blankets, might have extended perhaps to the temper of the 
two armies. The events of the day had tended to confirm 
the impression made by the battle of Long Island ; to increase 
the belief of the British in their resistless superiority, and to 
lower the confidence of the Americans in their officers and in 
themselves. 

In reporting to their respective governments upon the con- 



22 Coirwtemorative Oration. 

duct of their troops at Kip's Bay on this memorable Sunday, 
Sir William Howe gave praise for highly meritorious con- 
duct to his officers and men, while Washington expressed to 
Congress his great surprise and mortification at the dastardly 
behavior of his troops, whose cowardice was said to have 
wrung from him the exclamation, "Are these the men with 
whom I am to defend America ? " 

Whilst Washington in general orders denounced instant 
death as the punishment of cowardice in the field, he devoted 
himself to the task of raising the courage of the army. He 
perfectly understood that dependence upon raw militia was 
resting upon a broken staff. " Men," he wrote to the President 
of Congress, "just dragged from the tender scenes of domes- 
tic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, totally unacquainted 
with every kind of military skill (which is followed by want 
of confidence in themselves when opposed to troops regularly 
trained and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior 
in arms), are timid and ready to fl)' from their own shadows." 
He had formed the determination, for which his present strong 
position afforded an excellent opportunity, " to habituate his 
soldiers by a series of successful skirmishes to meet the 
enemy in the field." With clear sagacity, as observed by 
Marshall, he had persuaded himself that his detachments, 
knowing that a strongly entrenched camp was immediately in 
their rear, would soon display their native courage and speed- 
ily regain the confidence they had lost. 

On the morning of Monday the i6th of September, Wash- 
ington concluded a letter to Congress on the affair at Kip's 
Bay, with the remark, " I have sent out some reconnoitring 
parties to gain intelligence, if possible, of the disposition of 
the enemy." From the contemporaneous authority of an 
officer engaged in the affair, it appears that a scouting party 
of the Regiment of Rangers, a body of picked men under the 
command of Lieut. Colonel Thomas Knowlton, set out 
before day-break with instructions to ascertain the position 
of the enemy's advanced guard. Passing over the ridge 
which we have described as the Bloomingdale Heights, then 
known as the Vanderwater Heights (they are so described in 



Commemorative Oration. 23 

Sir William Howe's despatch), they pushed through the woods 
until, near the southern extremity of this ridge, they came at 
day-break upon a large party of the British light infantry, who 
rapidly advanced upon them. A sharp skirmish ensued, 
until Knowlton, perceiving that with their superior numbers 
they were turning his flank, ordered a retreat. His men fell 
back in an orderly manner to the northernmost end of the 
ridge, where close by our advance posts a second stand was 
made. Meanwhile, the firing had attracted attention, and 
soon after Washington's morning despatches were sent to 
Congress, rumors reached the headquarters of a movement 
by the enemy, considerable bodies of whom were showing 
themselves at the lower end of the plains. 

Adjutant-General Joseph Reed, as he himself informs us, 
was sent to the front to learn the truth, and went down to 
the most advanced guard picketed on the plain below the 
Point of Rocks. He here fell in with the party of Knowlton, 
who had been driven from the hill, and while Reed was talk- 
ing to the officer in command the enemy showed themselves 
and opened fire at a distance of fifty yards. The Ameri- 
cans behaved well, stood and returned the fire till overpowered 
by numbers (ten to one is Reed's estimate), they retreated, 
the enemy advancing with such rapidity that they were 
in possession of the house in which Reed conversed with the 
officer five minutes after he left it. 

Reed encouraged by the behavior of the men started for 
headquarters to make his report and ask for reinforcements. 
Meanwhile Washington had mounted his horse and ridden 
down to our advanced posts. Hardly had Reed reached him 
when the light infantry showed themselves in view, and in 
the most contemptuous manner sounded their bugles as is 
usual after a fox chase. This insulting behavior brought a 
blush to the cheeks of the officers, and caused their blood to 
tingle with shame. It showed them the contempt in which 
they were held by their adversaries and seemed to crown 
their disgrace. 

On reconnoitring the situation of the enemy, Washington 
saw that there was an opportunity for a successful action in 



24 Comjnemorative Oration. 

which, under favorable conditions, the morale of the army 
could be restored, and, to use his own words, he formed the 
design of" cutting off such of the enemy's troops as might 
advance to the extremity of the woods." This wood was on 
the northernmost spur of the Bloomingdale Heights, which 
overlooked the hollow way and was divided from a similar 
spur opposite at the Point of Rocks by a gully or ravine at 
the foot of which lay a round meadow known in the topo- 
graphy of the day as Matje (or Mutje) Davits Fly. 

AVashington learning that the body of the enemy who kept 
themselves concealed was about three hundred, ordered three 
companies of Colonel Wecdon's regiment from Virginia, 
under the command of Major Andrew Leitch, and Lieutenant- 
Colonel Knowlton with his Rangers, to try and get in their 
rear, while a disposition was made as if to attack them in front 
and to draw their attention that way. Knowlton who was 
familiar with the ground seems to have guided his party by 
the left flank of the enemy through the woods of the western 
slopes of the Bloomingdale Ridge in which he had fought in 
the morning, in order to fall upon their rear. Leitch with 
his Virginians, unacquainted with the field, was put under 
the guidance of Adjutant-General Reed. It is worth while 
here to notice that the Virginia troop, which was this day 
under Leitch, had only arrived the day preceding, having 
been ordered from the command of General Mercer in New 
Jersey, and had joined the camp by way of Burdett's Ferry, 
facing Fort Washington. Meanwhile at ten o'clock a de- 
monstration or feint was made on the front which had the 
effect intended by Washington. The British troops im- 
mediately ran down the hill to the round meadow at its foot. 
Here, in the words of General Clinton, who was in the action 
during the greater part of the day, and whose report to the 
New York Convention is the most detailed and intelligible 
account of it, they were opposed with spirit and soon made 
to retreat to a clear field about two hundred paces (eight 
hundred feet distant), south-east of the fly or meadow, where 
they lodged themselves behind a fence covered with bushes. 
This cleared field we take to have been to the east and some- 



Commemorative Oration. 25 

what south of the point of the ridge facing the Point of Rocks. 
A smart firing began but at too great a distance to do much 
execution, when a couple of field pieces being brought to 
bear upon the British, at the second discharge they again fell 
back retreating up the eastern slope of the hill. At this mo- 
ment Major Leitch and his command came upon the field, but 
misled by the movements of the regiment in action, who seem 
to have hailed them as they appeared on the plain, were 
diverted from the path by which Reed intended to lead them 
around the right flank of the British to their rear, where he 
hoped to make a junction with Knowlton's Rangers. Leitch's 
command evidently came from the lines by the Kings Bridge 
road and their course was to have been by an irregular road, 
which leaving it crossed the plain, ran along the eastern slope 
of the ridge and passed over it about 112th street, where the 
line of trees now standing marks its course, connecting with 
the Bloomingdale road at its intersection with the present 
Eleventh avenue. Reed finding it impossible to check their 
ardor accompanied them. They joined the regiment in 
action ; the feint was now turned into an attack. In a few 
minutes, in the words of Reed, our brave fellows mounted up 
the rocks, attacked the enemy, and a brisk action ensued. 
Major Leitch fell presently, after the close fighting began, 
wounded with three balls. In a buckwheat field on the top 
of the hill, which General Clinton describes as four hundred 
paces — sixteen hundred feet distant — (and here we must 
remark that there can be no doubt about the accuracy of 
these distances, Clinton himself having surveyed the ground 
a few years previously to settle the Harlem boundary), the 
British troops met the 42d Highlanders, who, dispatched 
at eleven o'clock, had moved up on a double trot without 
stopping to draw breath, to the support of the Light In- 
fantry, whose distance from their lines had caused general 
alarm at Howe's headquarters. 

The effect of the undue and unexpected precipitation on the 
part of the American troops ordered to make the feint, was 
to cause the attack to be made too soon, and rather in flank 
than in the rear, thus thwarting the well-arranged plans of 



26 Commemorative Oration. 

Washington. The interference with his orders was pointedly 
referred to in the General Orders of the next day, in the re- 
mark that " the loss of the enemy yesterday would undoubt- 
edly have been much greater if the orders of the Commander- 
in-Chief had not in some instance been contradicted by some 
inferior officers, who, however well they might mean, ought 
not to presume to direct." At the same time, the Virgin- 
ians of Leitch's command received the thanks of Washington 
for their gallantry. 

On receiving their reinforcements, the British made their 
second stand. Here it is probable that Knowlton made his 
appearance on the British left flank. In the buckwheat field 
which is located to the eastward of the Bloomingdale Asylum 
on the line of iiSth street, a brisk action commenced, which 
continued near two hours. In this fight, in which, in the 
words of General Heath, there was good " markmanship on 
both sides," Colonel Knowlton fell about noon. The officer 
of the Rangers, whose account of the early morning skirmish 
we have freely quoted, caught him in his arms, and sent him 
off the field by two of his men, and he was taken to our lines 
on the horse of Adjutant-General Reed, probably by the road 
we have described, which in fact is the only road laid down 
on the maps of the period, and the only path practicable for 
a horse. 

Knowlton behaved with the greatest courage, and accepted 
his fate with brave composure. " He seemed," wrote one of 
his officers, " as unconcerned as though nothing had hap- 
pened to him." His last inquiry was as to the result of the 
action. Notwithstanding the loss of their leaders, the men 
persevered and continued the engagement under the lead of the 
captains, until Washington, finding that they needed support, 
advanced part of Colonel Griffiths' and Colonel Richardson's 
Maryland regiments, with some detatchmcnts from the eastern 
regiments who were nearest the scene of action, who charged 
the enemy with great intrepidity. Among these troops were 
Captain Beatty of the Maryland line, Major Mantz with three 
rifle companies of the same troops. Major Price with three of 
the Independent companies of Maryland troops, and three 



Commemorative Oration. 27 

other companies of the Maryland Flying Cavalry, a battalion 
of Virginians, and some southern troops. Thus reinforced, 
the Americans pushed on with fresh vigor. Generals Putnam 
and Greene, with Tilghman and other officers of Washington's 
staff, joined in the engagement, and animated the soldiers by 
their presence. Greene, in his account of the battle, speaks 
of the noble behavior of Putnam and Adjutant-General Reed. 
The British also received a considerable addition to their force, 
which appears from the official report of Lord Howe to have 
consisted of " the reserve with two field pieces, a battalion of 
Hessian grenadiers, and a company of chasseurs," under the 
command of Brigadier-General Leslie. Notwithstanding this 
assistance they were driven from the buckwheat field into a 
neighboring orchard. This orchard was a field north of 
the line of ii6th street, where the remains of the old trees 
were visible until about the year 1866, when the land was 
cleared. An ineffectual attempt was made by the British 
for a further stand, but they were again driven across a hol- 
low and up a hill not far distant from their own encampment. 
This hollow was undoubtedly the dip of land between the 
Bloomingdale and McGowan's Heights, and the hill the slope 
of the latter elevation. 

Here the Americans having silenced the British fire in 
great measure, Washington judged it prudent to order a 
retreat, fearing that the enemy, as he afterwards learned was 
really the case, were sending a large body to support their 
party, which would have involved his drawing supports from 
his strong position on the Harlem Heights, and have brought 
on a general engagement, which he was determined to avoid. 
The war, as he had written Congress, must be a " war of 
posts," and he had no thought of jeoparding the cause by a 
battle in the open field — at least, not till he had thoroughly 
tried the temper of his troops. The Von Lansing battalion 
was seen to draw near ; two other German battalions, under 
Von Donop, occupied M'Gowan's Pass ; and from eight to 
ten thousand men were under arms, hidden by the hill to 
which the enemy were being driven. The American troops 
obeyed the re-call ordered by Washington, although the 



28 Commemorative Oration. 

" pursuit of a flying enemy was so new a scone that it was 
with difficulty our men could be brought to retreat, which 
was, however, effected in very good order." 

The loss on the side of the Americans, as reported by 
General George Clinton, was seventeen dead and fifty-three 
wounded. On the part of the British, according to the full 
circumstantial report of Bauermeister, quoted by Mr. Ban- 
croft, there were seventy dead and two hundred and ten 
wounded. 

The battle, as we have described it, was chiefly fought 
upon the Bloomingdale Heights ; but as the main action 
commenced on the plains near Manhattanville, it was called 
by Mr. Lossing the battle of Harlem Plains, and that title 
has been adopted in the subsequent narratives of Mr. Dawson 
and other writers. Some manuscript accounts of the battle 
not hitherto referred to have thrown light upon points which 
seemed a little doubtful ; and in this connection I gratefully 
acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Stevens, Mr. Moore, and 
Mr. Kelby, of our New York Historical Society, for their 
kind assistance. 

The general and deep satisfaction at the events of the day 
was dimmed by the sorrow for those who had fallen or who 
were suffering from their wounds. 

The movements of the British left it doubtful what they 
might intend, and Washington's order for the night of the 
l6th indicated careful preparation to meet a possible attack 
along the whole line of heights, commanding the hollow way 
from the North River to the main road leading from New York 
to Kingsbridge. The parole was Beale, and the counter- 
sign, Maryland. Gen. Clinton was to form next the North 
River, then Gen. Scott's brigade and Lieut. Col. Sayres, of 
Col. Griffiths' regiment, with the three companies intended 
for a re-enforcement in the morning. 

Gen. Nixon's and Col. Sergeant's division, Col. Weedon 
and Maj. Price's regiments, were ordered to retire to their quar- 
ter and refresh themselves, but to hold themselves in readiness 
to turn out at a minute's warning. Gen. McDougal was to 
establish guards against his brigade upon the heights from 



Commemorative Oration. 29 

Morris's house to McDougall's camp, to furnish proper guards 
to prevent surprise, not less than twenty men from each regi- 
ment. Gen. Putnam was placed in command upon the right 
flank for the night, and Gen. Spencer from McDougall's 
brigade to Morris's house ; and should the enemy attempt to 
pass during the night, Gen. Putnam was to apply to Gen. 
Spencer for a re-enforc<;ment. 

The next day, by general order, Washington returned his 
most hearty thanks to " the troops commanded yesterday by 
Major Leitch, who first advanced upon the enemy, and the 
others who so resolutely supported them." He contrasted 
their behavior with that of some troops the day before, as 
showing what might be done when officers and men exert 
themselves. Again he called upon them to act up to the 
noble cause in which they were engaged, and to support the 
honor and liberties of tlieir country. In naming the officer 
who was to take command of the party lately led by Col. 
Knowlton, he declared that the gallant officer who had yes- 
terday fallen while gloriously fighting would have done honor 
to any country. The order concluded with a rebuke to the 
inferior officers, whose ill-advised attention to unauthorized 
orders had interfered with the orders of the Commander-in- 
Chief and diminished their success. 

The name of Leitch was given by Washington for the 
next day's parole — a grateful tribute to the wounded officer, 
who lingered till the 1st of October, and for the countersign, 
with similar significance, was given " Virginin." 

Col. Knowlton — whose grandson we cordially welcome on 
this occasion — was the favorite officer of Gen. Putnam. He 
had distinguished himself, with Prescott, in fortifying Bun- 
ker Hill and in holding the British at bay ; in Trumbull's 
historic painting he stands almost alone, " the hero of the rail 
fence," without coat or hat, grasping his bayonetless musket. 
He became the trusted officer of Washington, and was de- 
puted by the Commander-in-Chief to head a difficult night 
expedition to Charlestown, which he managed with entire 
success. He was buried by order of Washington within the 
lines, and Leitch was presently buried by his side ; what fitter 



30 Commemorative Oration. 

time than this, our Centennial anniversary, could a grateful 
people select for the erection of a monument to their 
memory ? 

The result of the engagement which, commencing as a skir- 
mish of outposts, had assumed at its close such large dimen- 
sions that from four to five thousand troops were estimated to be 
engaged on cither side, had signally accomplished the design 
of Washington to recover the military ardor of his troops. 
It was, as Irving remarks in his Life of Washington, "The 
first gleam of success in the campaign." The importance 
attributed to it by Washington appears from the accounts 
written by him to the President of Congress ; to the Conven- 
tion of New York ; to Gov. Henry, Gov. Trumbull, Gen. 
Schuyler, and his brothers Lund and John Augustine. To 
Gen. Schuyler he said, " Our men behaved with great 
bravery, and being supported by fresh troops, beat the 
enemy fairly from the field." 

General Greene, who at a later day, wrote of this his first 
close fight, " I fought hard at Harlem," said, on the 4th 
October, in a detailed account of the action: " Had all the 
Colonies good officers there is no danger of the Troops ; 
never were troops that would stand in the field longer than 
the American soldiery. If the officers were as good as the 
men, and had only a few months to form the troops by dis- 
cipline, America might bid defiance to the whole world." 

Gen. George Clinton concluded his narrative of the battle 
to the New York Convention, with the remark : "I con- 
sider our success in this small affair at this time almost equal 
to a victory. It has animated our troops, given them new 
spirits, and erased every bad impression the retreat from 
Long Island, etc., had left on their minds. They find they 
are able with inferior numbers to drive the enemy — and 
think of nothing now but conquest." 

This success following immediately the unfortunate affair 
of Kip's Bay — in which, as was remarked by Heath, the 
officers at least knew that the city was to be abandoned, — 
warranted the opinion which Greene, who soon became the 
first military authority in America, e.xpressed of those stay- 



Commemorative Oration. 31 

ing qualities of the American soldier, which in our day have 
been recognized by high authorities in Great Britain. 

The late distinguished Col. Charles Chesney, of the Royal 
Engineers, in a review of the interesting History of our Civil 
War by the Comte de Paris, referred to Malvern Hill as illus- 
trating " the truth which the world is slowly realizing, that 
the American soldier is most formidable when apparently 
defeated, and least subject to panic when retreating before a 
victorious enemy." 

The bugle blast of the morning that had seemed to Reed to 
liken the contest to a fox chase, had called forth a spirit and 
a policy which resulted in a double lesson of confidence to the 
Americans and of caution to the British. " They have ever 
since," wrote George Clinton on the 21st of September, "been 
exceedingly modest and quiet, not having even patrolling par- 
ties beyond their lines." The British for a time showed no 
desire to bring on the general engagement the American 
officers had believed to be impending, and which Wash- 
ington had been anxious to avoid on the policy recom.mended 
by our friends in Europe, and which accorded with his own 
conviction. So late as the 2d of October an American party 
of four thousand men gathered in without molestation the 
hay and corn in the Harlem Plains which each army had 
been watching and claiming as its own. 

The British order for the 17th, the day after the battle, 
while expressing the highest opinion of the bravery of the 
troops, who it remarked had yesterday beaten back a very 
superior body of the rebels, and returning thanks to the 
battalion, and the officers and men of the artillery that came 
to their support, expressed the disapproval by the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the light company in pursuing the rebels 
without discretion, without support. 

No similar imprudence was committed on the part of the 
light infantry during the period of nearly four weeks that the 
two armies remained encamped at Harlem. A brief mention 
of the engagement is found in the Historic Record of the 
Forty-second Highlanders, with the remark, "This being 



32 Commemorative Oration. 

only an affair of outposts, no detailed account of it was given, 
but it was a well contested action." 

Stcdman's History of the American War, says, that " the 
action was carried on by reinforcements on both sides and 
became very warm." It assumed that the Americans pos- 
sessed a great advantage from the circumstance of engaging 
within half a mile of their entrenched camp, where they could 
be supplied with fresh troops as often as the occasion required, 
and that victory nevertheless was on the part of the English, 
with a loss to the rebels of three hundred. For the true 
opinion of the affair entertained by Sir Henry Clinton, we are 
indebted to his own copy of Stedman's History, in which 
he had written on the margin of the passage pronouncing it a 
victory, "The ungovernable impetuosity of the light troops 
drew us into this scrape." 

In recalling after the lapse of a century the battle of Har- 
lem Plains, and remembering the subsequent events of the 
war, we see how completely those events confirm his judg- 
ment of the importance of that day in restoring to the 
American army confidence and self-respect, in compelling the 
soldierly regard of their brave opponents, and in inducing on 
the part of the British commander that caution and dilatory 
policy which accorded with our plans and contributed to our 
success. Excellent as was the material of the English army, 
Washington's hasty levies were composed of men in no whit 
inferior, save in training, discipline, and equipment, for which 
time and opportunity were essential. 

It is true that the army of Sir William Howe, which was 
pronounced by Lord Chatham " the best appointed army 
that ever took the field," was composed of English and Scotch 
regiments, whose pluck and endurance have commanded the 
admiration of the world from generation to generation, 
as exhibited in Spain, at Waterloo, in India, and the Crimea. 
It is true that the Hessian regiments represented the hardy 
and warlike characteristics of its ancestral tribe, which, as 
Bancroft tells us, the Romans could never vanquish ; a nation 
of soldiers whose valor had been proven on the battle-fields 
of Europe, engaged in a former century by Venice against 
the Turks, and who had taken part in the siege of Athens. 



Commemorative Oration. 33 

But the army of Washington came of stock equally ac- 
customed to war and hardship, and they soon commanded 
respect no less for their courage than for their moral traits. 
Gen. Conway, a distinguished French officer, said to Dr. 
Rush, that the people of no other nation were so quickly 
transformed into soldiers as those of the United States. 
"Those men," said Lord Chatham, in December, 1777, after 
the surrenderor Burgoyne, — "those men whom you called 
cowards, poltroons, runaways, and knaves, are become vic- 
torious over your veteran troops, and in the midst of victory 
and the flush of conquest have set ministers an example of 
moderation and magnaminity well worthy of imitation." 

In the American ranks were the descendants of Hol- 
landers and Walloons, who, in the Netherlands, had fought 
under the Prince of Orange against Philip of Spain and the 
Duke of Alva ; of Frenchmen who had served under Coligni 
and Henry of Navarre, whose kinsmen had fallen in the 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew's eve, or had passed through 
the siege of La Rochelle, waiting in vain for the assistance 
promised by Elizabeth and never brought by the Earl of 
Leicester. There were the descendants of those Avho had 
fought for Denmark against Tilly and Wallenstein, following 
the banner of the great Gustavus ; of the stout Englishmen 
who had battled for tht Parliamentarians at Naseby, and who 
had brought the King to the block at Whitehall ; of the Swiss 
who with pikes in their hands, and stirred by the horns of Uri 
and Unterwalden, had defended the freedom of the Cantons in 
the defiles of the Alps against the trained soldiers of Austria ; 
of the sturdy Burgers who had maintained against the Duke 
of Burgundy the liberties of Ghent and Liege ; of the heroes 
of different nationality but similar vigor who fought under 
Sobieski and saved Vienna from the Turks ; who stood with 
William of Orange or with the partisans of James at the 
Battle of the Boyne, which placed on firmer foundation the 
unity, strength, and freedom of Great Britain ; with the Dutch 
at La Hogue, or with that adventurous warrior, Charles the 
Xn. of Sweden, against his victorious rival, Peter the Great 
of Russia. It might have been said of Washington's army as 



34 Commeinorative Oration. 

was well said by the poet of the Centennial of the American 

people 

" In one strong race all races here unite." 

It is, perhaps, natural that the philosophic results of such a 
mingling of the best blood of Europe in the American colo- 
nies should have been less appreciated in sections that were 
settled by a single race than in New York, whose cosmopoli- 
tan character recalls the fact that as early as 1643 eighteen 
languages were spoken in the New Netherlands. 

Most happily for our land, the colonies were gradually 
united under the common law and the free institutions of Eng- 
land, and their Teutonic, Celtic, and Latin accents were 
exchanged for the tongue of Shakespeare and of Milton. But 
the varied elements of nationality cannot for that reason be 
forgotten by the student if he would read aright American 
history and trace to its sources American character. How, 
for instance, could he ignore the fact that the New Nether- 
lands, under the influence of the Dutch and Huguenots, 
became a home for those seeking freedom of conscience 
on this continent, as Holland had been the refuge of the 
oppressed of Europe, and that the religious toleration of 
which the New Netherlands set the example was not fully 
enjoyed in New England till William of Orange, in whose 
veins was blended the blood of Maurice and of Coligni, ended 
by his veto the Massachusetts acts touching witchcraft, heresy, 
and blasphemy. 

It has been remarked of the study of history, and with 
reference to its unity, that the entire succession of men 
throughout the world should be regarded as one man always 
living and incessantly learning ; in this view to how wide 
a field of education, and through what ages of training in tlie 
varied schools of Europe, may be traced the course of Ameri- 
can culture. 

There is another interesting thought suggested by the pro- 
gress of light which has been developed in England by Mr. 
Froude, and in France by M. Flammarion ; that to distant 
observers the events of years and ages that are gone may 
seem to be passing at the present moment. The light of 



Commemorative Oration. 35 

Sirius, for instance, takes nine years to reach us. " Could 
the inhabitants of Sirius," says Mr. Froude, in 1864, " see the 
earth at this moment they would see the English army in the 
trenches before Sebastopol and Florence Nightingdale watch- 
ing at Scutari over the wounded of Inkermann ;" and Flam- 
marion suggests that an inhabitant of the earth instantan- 
eously transported to Capella in 1872, and looking upon the 
stream of light reflected from our planet, could witness the 
bloody field of Waterloo. 

On a like hypothesis the unknown dwellers at further points 
might see passing before their eyes the battle which we com- 
memorate to-day, while yet more distant observers receding 
into space might follow the historic panorama of our planet 
through all the ages, not as a thing of the past but as in 
actual progress before their eyes. 

Misty as may be to us the more distant periods seen 
through the cloudy medium of imperfect annals, we may 
still trace the transatlantic sources of our varied civilization, 
which, as developed in this Western Continent in our hun- 
dredth birth year, make the American traveller, as he sets 
foot in parts of Europe, feel, as Ticknor said when he crossed 
the Pyrenees, "as if he had gone back two centuries in 
time." 

Whilst our progress has been respectable in the great ele- 
ments of civilization, sundry changes have been introduced into 
the theory and practice of our institutions since the days of 
Washington, for which Washington and his associates should 
not be held responsible. Among these changes are the ex- 
tension of the suffrage, especially in municipal affairs, with a 
total abandonment of the checks and guards provided by the 
wisdom of our fathers : and the substitution of popular elec- 
tion for gubernatorial or legislative appointment in the choice 
of those officials upon the excellence and purity of whose 
management depend the comfort, the good order, and the 
exact economy of our cities. 

Among the gravest questions presented by our centennial 
is the question how far those changes have tended to raise or 
to debase our moral standard ; how far it has diminished or 



36 Commemorative Oration. 

increased waste, mismanagement, and peculation ; how far they 
have lightened or augmented to rich and poor the burthens 
of taxation. Upon these points we look for light and a prac- 
tical solution from the able State Commission headed by Mr. 
Evarts. 

Another radical change in the practical working of our 
popular institutions is exhibited in our existing machinery by 
means of caucuses, conventions, and committees for the regu- 
lation of the State and National elections ; a scheme outsfide 
of the Constitution, and, as regards the choice of President, 
at variance with its intent, unsanctioned by law, and yet im- 
mediately affecting and deciding the elections provided for by 
law. It may deserve consideration how far this scheme, 
whatever its advantages, tends to facilitate the people in 
choosing candidates with the traits they require, or whether 
it tends to transfer the choice from the people to the managers, 
who might sometimes have views or interests adverse to those 
of the electors at large. 

Our safety and welfare depend upon the intelligent and 
patriotic exercise by the people of the sovereign power. 
France has taught us that a plebiscite may be invoked to sus- 
tain imperialism ; and from Europe comes the suggestion that 
with all our democratic forms we know something of the 
despotism of oligarchies ; and that despite the boasted virtue 
and cleverness of our people, they are more exposed than 
Europeans themselves to ofiicial imbecility and corruption. 

The example of Washington, whether at the head of the 
army or in the chair of State, stands alone in history, and there 
is scarcely an event in our annals in which that stately figure 
is conspicuous, from which we may not learn a lesson. 

Should the opening century have in store for you as the 
sovereigns of the land, trials or difi^culties like those \\hich 
Washington encountered at Kip's Bay ; should you chance 
upon emergencies calling for the highest courage and devotion 
to protect the honor of the country, and should you, finding 
cowardice and treachery where you looked for bravery and 
truth, be moved to exclaim, " Are these the men with whom 



Commemorative Oration. 37 

we are to defend America?" learn from the action of the 
Father of his Country, as he rode down those heights and 
looked upon those plains, how to inspire with courage your 
demoralized forces, and to wrest victory from defeat. 

Show no tenderness to those who betray their posts ; toler- 
ate no policy of silence, concealment, or condonement of acts 
derogatory to the national fame ; denounce openly each act 
of infamy ; threaten official death and public disgrace in your 
general orders against all who resist your instructions or who 
reflect dishonor on the Republic. But at the same time, like 
Washington, reanimate your forces : plan with skill your 
schemes for the discomfiture of the enemy : call forth your 
noblest sons from every college and academy, from the bar, 
the pulpit, and the press, as Washington deputed his most 
trusty officers — the Putnams, and Clintons, and Greenes, and 
Reeds — to accompany and direct the columns against the 
boastful foe advancing in open view, and sounding their 
bugles in derision. 

Let each man who through the coming century shall strive 
to defend our national heights against official corruption, 
whether it comes secrectly, in silence and in darkness, or in 
broad day, like an army with banners, — let each man feel as 
Washington taught his troops to feel, that behind him are the 
entrenchments of law and the Constitution, and a watchful, 
loyal, sustaining, and appreciative people. 

We have hastily glanced at the incidents of two days in the 
•war of the revolution, and the rounding century will presently 
embrace in turn each chief event in that memorable struggle. 

As we reverently recall our colonial and revolutionary 
fathers in the council chamber and in the field, as we cling 
with affection and pride to the Republic which they found- 
ed, with its widened boundaries, its welded unity, its extend- 
ed freedom ; its relations peaceful with all the powers ; its in- 
fluence for popular rights ; common schools without sectarian- 
ism, and its separation of Church and State, feh in greater or 
less degree by all governments and by all peoples : the thought 
presses that upon us devolves the duty and the responsibility 
of preserving all that is excellent in their work, all that is 



38 Commemorative Oration. 

noble in their political standard, all that is heroic in their 
fame. 

Even now, as we linger on the century that has closed, oi 
attempt to foreshadow that which has begun, the dignity, 
the purity, the stability of the Republic rests upon the honor 
of the generation of to-day, as it stands " a link in the chain 
of eternal order," between the generations that arc past and 
those that are to come. 



PROCEEDINGS 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



IN COMMEMORATION 



BATTLE OF HARLEM PLAINS 



ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 



September i6, 1876. 



At a stated meeting of the New York. Historical Society, held 
in its Hall on Tuesday evening, June 6, 1S76, the President, Fred- 
eric DE Peyster, in the chair — 

The Executive Committee submitted the following communication : 

The Executive Committee take leave to remind the Society of the approaching 
Centennial Aniversai-y of the Battle of Harlem Plains, fought on the i6th of Sep- 
tember, 1776. The action, though of minor importance, was one of the most 
brilliant exploits of the Revolutionary War. In a close conflict, the most cele- 
brated of the British regiments, after an unsuccessful effort to break the American 
lines, were repulsed and driven in confusion by the Continental troops. Tliis suc- 
cess restored confidence to the patriot forces demoralized by the retreat from Long 
Island and the subsequent landing of the British at Kip's Bay. 

Such an incident in the annals of New York should not pass imnoticed in this 
year of historic commemoration, and it is fitting that this Society should formally 
celebrate the occasion in an appropriate manner. 

A special Committee on Celebrations has recently been appointed by the Execu- 
tive Committee, and authority is asked of the Society to carry out such programme 
as may be by them proposed. 

Mr. James \V. Beekman, 2d Vice-President, after some remarks, 
submitted the following resolution, which was adopted : 

Resolved, That the communication of the E.xecutive Committee be referred back 
to the same Committee, with power. 

Extract from the Minutes, 

ANDREW WARNER, 

Recording Secretary. 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



COMMEMORATION 



BATTLE OF HARLEM PLAINS, 



Saturday, September i6, 1S76. 

A SPECIAL MEETiXG of the New York Historical Societ)' was this 
day held, pursuant to its order, to celebrate the One Hundredth Anni- 
versary of the action known as the Battle of Harlem Plains, fought 
on Monday, September i6th, 1776. To this meeting, on the heights 
of Bloomingdale, the crest of the hill overlooking Harlem Plains, 
between 117th and 119th streets, and the Ninth and Tenth avenues, 
the Governors of all States whose troops were engaged in the battle, 
our State and City officials, representative regiments of the city mili- 
tary, and numerous distinguished guests were invited. 

The proceedings were under the charge of a Committee of One 
Hundred of the members of the Society. The guests were received 
at the Fifth .\venue Hotel, -where a collation was provided, and were 
escorted by the officers of the Society to the ground, where platforms, 
gaily decorated with the Continental, Union, State, and City flags, 
were arranged for their reception. The ground, covered with tents, 
presented the appearance of an encampment, and from its elevated 
position commanding extensive views of the North and East Rivers, 
was visible from a great distance, presenting a scene of rare and 
animated beauty. 

The officers and their guests arrived upon the field at the appointed 
hour, three o'clock in the afternoon, and were closely followed by the 
Seventh Regiment, N. Y. S. Militia, who marched past to the position 
assigned them, where they halted in military formation. In their 



42 Commemoration of t lie 

rear a large tent had been set up where a generous hinch was pro- 
vided. At this moment there were not less than ten thousand people 
present, including a large number of ladies, for whom ample accom- 
modation in seats had been arranged, and the carriage enclosure was 
also full of gay equipages. 

The meeting was called to order by Frederic pe Pevster, U..D., 
the President of the Societ\-, who introduced the Rev. Morgan Dix, 
D.l)., Rector of Trinity Church, who invited die Divine blessing. 

Almighty God, Whose kingdom is everlasting, and Whose power is infinite : 
Have mercy upon all Thy people, and so rule Iheir hearts, that they may above all 
things seek Thy honor and glory, and faithfully oljey all in authority, according to 
Thy word and ordinance, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Almighty God, Who liast in all ages showed forth Thy power and mercy in the 
protection of every nation and people putting their sure trust in Thee : we yield 
Thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for all Tliy public mercies, and more especi- 
ally for the signal and wonderful manifestations of Thy providence which we com- 
memorate this year. Wherefore, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy 
Name be ascribed all honor and glory from generation to generation. 

Behold, O God our defender, and give peace in our time ; let the invincible 
defence of Thy power be the bulwark of Thy faithful people ; give us rest evermore 
from the storm of war, that we may continually serve Thee in all godly quietness 
and rejoice in giving praise to Thee, Who livest and reignest. Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, world without end. 

Our Father, Who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom 
come. Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily 
bread. And forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against 
us. And lead us not into temptation ; But deliver us from evil : For Thine is the 
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. 

The President, ^^R. de Pevster, then addressed the meeting, intro- 
ducing the Hon. Johx Jay, the orator of the day. 

In the name of the New York Historical .Society, of which I have the honor to 
be President, and in the exercise of my prerogative, I welcome you all this day to 
this memorable spot upon which was fought the action, the hundredth anniversary 
of which we are assembled to celebrate. Especially I welcome the distinguished 
officials from neighboring States, as well as of our own City, who grace the occa- 
sion with their presence, and the officers and men of the gallant Seventh Regiment, 
who have so cordially and patriotically responded to our invitation, and now clothe 
this peaceful scene with the bright panoply of war. 

We are standing upon the very ground where the hottest of the Battle of Harlem 
Plains was fought ; and from tlie crest of this hill we m.ay see to the northward 
the Point of Rocks, and to the southward McGowan's Pass, whence the rival 
armies surveyed the field of contest, the struggle, the flight, and the victory. 

It is neither my purpose nor within tlie range of my duty to touch even lightly 



Battle of Harlem Plains. 43 

upon this historic theme; the battle and its consequences will be related to you by 
the distinguished gentleman whom the Society has selected as the orator of the 
day, whose name you will recognize as one familiar in New York annals. But I 
may call your attention to the fact, that this is the only day which we of New 
York may properly celebrate in this year of Centennial rejoicing, if we except the 
day of our National Independence. But you and the orator of the day will par- 
don me, if I submit one historic reflection, and at the same time answer a not 
uncommon inquiry : Why does this great city, with its enormous population, 
celebrate an action which was after all rather a skirmish of outposts than in any 
true sense a battle ? Why dignify with military show, the raising of banners, and 
the assemblage of this mass of patriotic citizens an action which would seem at 
first sight worthy of hardly more than a village parade ? 

In the scale of history events are not measured by ordinary standards. Tliey are 
great and memorable in proportion to their consequences. Montaigne, the pro- 
found observer, of whom it has been well said tliat he not only depended on 
the natural force of his own vast and penetrative powers, but that lie made of 
all that he committed his own, referring to the extraordinary combat in which 
Leonidas with his immortal band'defended the passes of his country, remarked that 
the four famous victories of Greece, the fairest the sun ever shone on— Salamis, 
Platea, Mycale, and Sicily, never opposed all their united glories to the single- 
glory of Thermopylce. Yet, this battle — if battle it may be called, the glory of 
which still shines with undiminished lustre after the lapse of twenty three centuries, 
—was but the struggle of three hundred men ; the death roll of three hundred men 
and their gallant king, of whom our own Anthon (my dear personal friend), 
profound classical scholar, has observed, with a knowledge of Grecian character all 
his own, that "they no doubt considered their persevering stand in the post en- 
trusted to them not as an act of high and heroic devotion, but of simple and indis- 
pensable duty." Looking upon the intelligent faces and martial forms of the gal- 
lant regiment, to whom not only our City and our State, but the whole country 
owes so heavy a debt of gratitude, I am forcibly reminded by this illustration of 
the ennobling sentiment that duty to country is the one distinguishing trait, em- 
bracing all other qualities in itself, of the true soldier. 

At the entrance of the pass of Thermopyloc a monument stood in antiquity, 
bearing only the simple inscription : " Go, traveller, tell at Sparta that we died 
here in obedience to the laws." I do not propose to establish a comparison be- 
tween the action of Harlem Plains and the Spartan fight, save to claim for 
the one as for the other the glory of its consequences far out of proportion to its 
own immediate importance. The Persian hosts learned the lesson that Sparta 
might be anniliilated, but never conquered, and the proud veterans of England 
and the continent, rudely awakened from their dream of easy conquest, on this 
our battle-field first saw the magnitude of their undertaking, and in their 
sharp repulse were made to know the temper and the character of the American 
soldier. A century has passed since the prudent voice of Washington recalled 
the troops, flushed with victory, from their eager pursuit of the flying foe. A 
hundred years — the little city which the patriots defended has overrun the island 
and climbed the very heights whereon they made their last stand, yet this spot, 
this ridge of hill and yonder plains are all unchanged. The rocks behind which 



44 Coinniciiioralion of the 

the flying troops sought shelter are still here to-day, and the grass still grows 
upon the rich plain below, while all around, northward and southward, east and 
west, stately buildings show the development of our city, a noble testimony to 
the wisdom of our fathers. The patriotic enthusiasm which Ijeams upon me 
from this audience assures me that here at least there is no want of reverence for 
tlie past, or love for our country. Our country ! well may we exclaim with 
Cicero: "O ! jus eximium nostrje civitatis!" (Oh! matchless right of our 
country !) All that we are and have is hers of right. 

I am glad that the narration of the events of September i6, 1776, has fallen to 
a son of New York — a gentleman who wortliily upholds the honor of his ances- 
tral name — a grandson of that pure, patriotic, and elevated man, the friend of 
Washington, the first Chief- Justice of the United States, of whom Webster so 
beautifully said that when the ermine of justice fell on his shoulders it touched 
nothing less spotless tlian itself. I beg to introduce to you the Honorahi.f, John 
Jay. 

On the conclusion of the oration the Rev. Richard S. Storrs, 
D.l)., rising to move a resoUition of tlianks, made the following 
remarks : 

Mk. President : — I rise to offer a resoUition, which, I am glad to know, has 
already been anticipated in the judgment and the feeling of every one in this vast 
and most respectable assemblage who has been able to hear the admirable address 
to which we have been listening. We must all feel, I am sure, that it has been 
good to stand together upon these heights, consecrated by the courage and the 
devotion, and signalized by the success of a hundred years ago. If it be true, as 
has been said, as has been repeated in the address to which we have listened, that 
one could not stand at lona without having liis ])iety revived, or at Marathon with- 
out feeling a fresh glow of patriotic impulse, we must all agree that it is still better 
for us, American citizens, to stand where we are ; where no mere picture of distant 
or ancient battle has been engaging our thoughts ; where a fierce struggle, fought 
to a successful issue, became, as has been shown, a principal condition of our 
present, permanent, and glorious American libel ty. We must rejoice that the 
defeat and the dismay, the massacre and the retreat of Urooklyn Heiglits gave 
place to the success and tlie victory of Harlem Plains. It is every way ennobling to 
stand upon these summits, where, through the enveloping murk and gloom, shone 
forth the transfiguring light of the wisdom ami the courage of Washington and his 
comrades, and to be reminded of the precious blood by the shedding of which free- 
dom and hope were purchased for us. 

It is good to remember, too, as we have been told to-d.-iy, that not only the men 
whom history celebrates contributed to the success which we commemorate ; that a 
woman's hand turned the poised scales of destiny, and that to a woman's wit and 
patriotic courage was due the rescue of Putnam and his division from the troops of 
(.General Howe. We do not care to know henceforth the name "Incleberg!" 
Let it sleep in the historic |)age ! Let it linger only amid the records which eager 
and patient eyes, like those of our orator, shall explore ! Let us rejoice that it 



Battle of Harlem Plains. 45 

has been swept from present American remembrance by the superseding name of 
that noble woman which shall cling as now to " Murray Hill," and make it her 
monument, while New York continues. Let us gratefully remember that to that 
bright woman, and to the soldiers whose escape she secured, we owe the liberties 
which we to-day enjoy and boast ! Let us not forget, as we go from these heights, 
that the artisan pursues liis peaceful industry, because the soldier fouglit here be- 
fore him ; that this holiday assembly, these holiday flags, the commerce which seeks 
yonder liquid highways, on the riglit hand and tlie left ; all the manifold industries 
of the city and of the land ; these asylums, our churches and newspapers, our 
schools and courts, yonder splendid mansions, that beauteous pleasure ground — 
these all are now possible to us because the soldiers of a hundred years since stood 
fast and died in our behalf! And, as we remember this indebtedness to the past, 
let us honor those who represent those soldiers in the present, with an equal readi- 
ness to do and to die ; and let us determine for ourselves, that each of us, by life 
and labor, will contribute in our peaceful individual ways, as far as it is given us 
to do it, to the furtherance of the liberty for which they died, the memory of whose 
sacrifice hallows this ground, to the maintenance of that Republican civilization to 
whose early beginnings their names and work still give renown ! 

Mr. President -. We have been instructed by the careful and various know- 
ledge of our distinguished orator. We have been charmed by the vivid and pic- 
turesque grace with which he has unrolled before us this memorable panorama of 
battle. We have been quickened and inspired by his thoughtful and patriotic elo- 
quence. We shall all, I am sure, rejoice together that the Committee of Arrange- 
ments entrusted this office to one of whom it has already been well said that he 
wortliily bears an illustrious name — a name which is so great an inheritance that it 
takes a good man and a strong man to bear it worthily ! And I know that I 
simply utter the feeling of all present, when, in behalf of the Society, which has 
done me the honor to count me among its honorary members, I offer the following 
resolution : 

Resoh'id, That the thanks of the Society he and are hereby tendered to the 
Honorable John Jay for his interesting and instructive address of this day, in 
commemoration of the historic event which took place on this spot a hundred 
years ago ; and that a copy be requested for publication. 

The Hon. James W. Beekman seconded the resolution. 

Mr. President : — In seconding the resolution which has just been so eloquently 
offered by the Rev. Dr. Storrs, I propose to point out, as a peculiar reason for 
its adoption, the justice done to New York by this celebration. 

I venture to claim for Manhattan more honor for patriotic devotion and courage 
than it has been usual to accord her. We are accustomed to hear the praises of 
New England ; and Bunker Hill has eclipsed in fame, by reason of its priority of 
occurrence, all the other considerable battles of the war of Independence. Yet 
New York began resistance to British aggression in the street battle of Golden 
Hill, at the corner of the present John and Pearl streets. Tl-.e first blood of the 
American Revolution was there shed, on the iSth of January, 1770 (as has been 



46 Commemoration of the 

pointed out by the historian Dawson), two months before the famous "massacre" 
in King street, Boston, and five years and four months before the afTair of Lexing- 
ton. Liberty of conscience, which was the later boast of Rhode Island and 
Maryland, always prevailed in New York from its foundation ; liberty of the 
press was maintained in the acquittal of John Peter Zenger, in 1745. In October, 
1764, New York appointed the tirst Committee of Correspondence, which was 
also the first step towards resistance and union, six years before Massachusetts, 
and nine years before Virgina imitated her example. When an attempt was made 
to put the Stamp Act in force, in 1765, the merchants of New York organized the 
non-importation agreement, and executed it faithfully. There was a tea-party 
here as well as in Boston ; but what was done there by a small body of men by 
night and under the disguise of Mohawks, was done here in broad daylight by the 
citizens in mass-meeting and without concealment. And when hostilities had 
commenced. New York overturned tlie King's authority in the city, and estab- 
lished a governing Committee of One Hundred, April 24th, 1775, long before such 
action was taken by any other colony or community in America. During that 
critical night, on which Washington withdrew his army silently across the East 
River, after the defeat on Brooklyn Heights, not a single spy was able to carry 
tidings of what was going on to the British on Long Island. The secret was 
kept by New York, and the jjatriot army was saved. 

On the spot where we now stand the first repulse of tlie war w.-is sustained Ijy the 
British arms. As we have just heard, the insulting bugle blast, the fox hunter's 
"gone away," given by the bugles of the enemy from the upper slope of this hiU, 
as the dashing light infantry drove in our pickets, stung with shame the veteran 
officers, some of whom had seen service in the French war of 1756. The Com- 
mander-in-Chief seized the favorable moment to turn the retreat into success, and 
by a well-concerted move, to raise the morale of our troops disheartened by the 
precipitate flight of the preceding day. A rally of our men took place — of men 
from every colony — and the result was the repulse of the British, which we com- 
memorate now. The American arms had never before been successful : for Bunker 
Hill was a defeat — so was the battle of Long Island. Here was their first 
success. 

Although the battle of Harlem Plains has been called only a skirmish, its im- 
portance in a military sense was great. Had the British advance not been thus 
checked, the army of Independence would have been enveloped by superior 
numbers, Fort Washington and our incomplete defences captured, .and our entire 
army destroyed. The British plans were very simple. They desired to cut off tlie 
New England from the other colonies, by seizing the passes of the Hudson, and to 
occupy Albany by an invasion from Canada. The success of the British campaign 
depended, therefore, upon the destruction of the army of Washington. By its 
grim and slow withdrawal into the Jerseys, time was gained to fortify the High- 
lands, and that severing of the colonies, which was aimed at, was finally made 
impossible by the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga in the next year. 

All this resulted from the cheering inspiration and hope which the joy of success 
gave to our forces at the battle of Harlem Plains. Wet, sick, disheartened by 
the retreat from Long Island, and by the rout at Kip's Bay, they learned liere 
that British regulars were nut invincible. 



Battle of Harlem Plains. 47 

1 advocate most heartily, therefore, the adoption of the resolution of thanks to 
the orator, who has commemorated so worthily this eventful day. 

"The question was put by the President, and the resolution un- 
animously adopted. 

Mr. John Austin Stevens, on behalf of the Committee on the 
Celebration, offered the following resolutions, which were unani- 
mously adopted : — 

Resxlvcd, That tlie thanks of the Society be and are hereby tendered to His 
Excellmcy the Governor of the State of Rhode Island, and His Honor the Mayor 
of Nev York, for the signal lienor they have done us this day by their presence 
on the lattle-field where the sons of the sister colonies stood shoulder to shoulder 
with th(^e of New York a century ago. 

ResohhJ^ That the thanks of the .Society be and are hereby tendered to the 
ReverendClergy for their cordial and grateful presence on this occasion. 

Resoh'ci\ That the thanks of the Society be and are hereby tendered to the 
distinguish^ assemblage who have so cordially responded to its invitation, and are 
gathered hete to unite with it in its commemoration of a day eventful in New York 
annals and gorious in the history of the struggle for Independence. 

Resoh'id, '^liat the thanks of the Society and of this meeting be and are hereby 
tendered to tl^ officers and gentlemen of the Seventh Regiment, New York State 
Militia, for th'ir generous and patriotic response to the invitation of the Society 
to be present oi this occasion, adding to its interest in a manner so conspicuous 
and so appropriate. 

Resolved, Tha the Society cheerfully acknowledge their obligations to the 
owners of the g^und upon which this celebration is held, Messrs. Drexel and 
Olmstead, for its ^ee use, and to Mr. Henry Tone, the present owner of the old 
De Peyster Housejfor the obliging manner in which he has placed it at the dispo- 
sition of the Comm^tee of Arrangements. 

Rev. William (\.dams, D.D., pronounced a benediction — 

God save and blesspur country ; enabling us, like our fathers, to " withstand 
in the evil day, and ha(ng done all to stand." The blessing of Almightly God, 
the Father, the Son, i^d the Holy Ghost be with you all, now and for ever. 
Amen. 

The Society then a(5purned. 

ANDREW WARNER, 

Eecordiiig Secretary. 



48 Cciitvtciiicvaiioii of the 



NEWSPAPER NOTICES OF THE CELEBRATION. 



From the New York Timf.s of Sunday, September 17, 1S70 

" Another of the one hundred years old exploits of the Revoliitionay War was 
commemorated yesterday on the high grounds of Harlem, lying btwcen One 
Hundred and Tenth and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth streets aid Ninth and 
Tenth Avenues. The event was historic, and was celebrated upon hitoric ground. 
The battle of Harlem Plains, as a battle, was on a comparatively snail scale, but 
its value was positive and emphatic. It brought no actu.il disaste to tlie British 
arms — it resulted in a little more than a check to their pretensiois — but it gave 
new ardor and confidence to the American troops, and remove< the depression 
which since the battle of Long Island had brooded over the arny. The story of 
the conflict was told by the orator of the day, and, therefore, it needs no recapi- 
tulation here. Suffice it to say that tlie trained veterans of Ritain assailed the 
American position, were driven back by the raw levies of TOshington, and re- 
treated from the field. But out of the slight conflict came ? bolder bearing, an 
intrepidity of purpose, to the revolutionary soldiers. They 'ad fought and con- 
quered, and might not the victory be multiplied? The da- on which the battle 
was fought was the birthday of an ardor and energy wli-h culminated in the 
loftiest triumph, and accordingly it was deemed worthy of ommemoration. The 
Historical Society took the matter in hand, and drew the I'ight record of the time 
from the archives of tlie dead century. Success crowned heir undertaking. Tlie 
demonstration was unique, simple, and patriotic. Someof the best names in the 
country lent to it their prestige ; the people came to tlie>.'elebration to the number 
of nearly five thousand ; the military were represented 'y the Seventh Regiment ; 
Rev. Drs. Storrs, Adams, and Dix were among the rpresentatives of the clergy, 
and in all respects the conflict of a century ago was It/ally commemorated. That 
a Marathon should fire the patriotism of one who st'od upon the classic ground, 
or an lona m.ike his piety burn with a brighter ray. was the text of the hour, and 
it was well borne in mind by tlie assemljlage. Iiey stood, after all, on classic 
ground themselves, and they needed no better rer«nder of their loyalty. Beneath 
their eye lay ' a country well worth fighting for indeed. To the south was the 
great emporium of the country's commerce ar' industry ; its freighted argosies 
went by within their view on the waters of the 'ast River and Long Island Sound ; 
the ground sloped away to the distant High Jridge on the north, and a little to 



Battle of Harlem Plains. ■ 49 

the left they caught a glimp^ie of the noble Hudson and the Palisides through two 
dark-green clumps of woodland. All around was something to suggest historic 
memories. The yellow gable of the old De Peyster House, near which the battle 
of one hundred years ago was fought, was hard by, and on the broken ground in 
the valley stood the stone fence behind which the British had made their most 
desperate stand. It was the spot where the battle was most hotly waged. 

" The ceremonial of the day took place on the slope of the hill overlooking the 
Harlem Plains. A handsome stand had been erected for the members of the Soci- 
ety and their invited guests, and close by was another stand for the Band of the 
Seventh Regiment. Both were handsomely draped with red cloth, and above 
them waved the American ensign. Flags displaying the city arms were also flung 
to the winds. The slopes of the hill were dotted with tents, above all of which 
waved the Stars and Stripes. The ground was par tially enclosed, the fence around 
being draped in red. white, and blue, and having flags displayed at short intervals. 
It had been decided to begin the ceremonies at 2.30 o'clock, but matters were not 
quite in train at that time. It was nearly an hour later when the members of the 
Historical Society and their guests arrived from the city in carriages, and about 
the same time the sounds of a military band were heard, and the Seventh Regi- 
ment came marching up One Hundred and Tenth street, not far from the spot 
where, a century before, the British troops had passed. The regiment looked 
splendidly as it moved along. There was just a fla-sh of sunlight needed to glint 
back from their bayonets, for the d.iy was dull and sombre, but for all that the 
pageant was excellent. The regiment drew up on the northern slope of the liill, 
and the bandsmen in their gay uniforms took their place on their stand. The 
crowd was now compact and attentive. Ladies were present in large numbers, 
and most of them were provided with seats. Police were in attendance from the 
Twenty-second, Thirtietli, Thirty-first, Thirty-second, and Thirty-fifth Precincts, 
under command of Inspector Speight, but where there was so much disposition 
toward order there was but small need for their service. On the outer edge of 
the inclosure space was provided for a band of boys and girls from a neighboring 
institution, each one of whom carried a miniature American flag. Various trifles 
indicating the patriotism of the people were to be seen. Among others was a medal 
commemorative of the occasion, which was largely circulated. It bore on one 
side the inscription, ' The Centennial year of our national independence.' Be- 
neath this was a portrait of Washington and the date ' 1S76.' On the reverse 
side was inscribed, ' Battle of Harlem Plains, September, 1776.' Among those 
taking part in the ceremonies of the day or approving of it by their presence were : 
Gov. Henry Lippitt, of Rhode Island, and staff, including Col. Charles Warren 
Lippitt, Chief of Personal Staff; Col. Edward Eames ; Col. Theodore M. Cook ; 
Gen. Heber Lefavour, Adjutant-General of the State of Rhode Island ; Col . J. 
C. Knight, Paymaster-General; Hon. John Jay; Frederic De Peyster, President 
of the Historical Society ; James W. Beekman, Vice-President ; Rev. Dr. Rich- 
ard S. Storrs, of Brooklyn ; Rev. Dr. Adams, Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, E. F. De- 
lancey, John Austin Stevens, C. H. Ward, Mayor Wickham, ex-Commissioner 
Van Nort, George H. Moore, Fordham Morris, Col. Warner, Charles O'Conor, 
Judge Larremore, Gen. Kilburne Knox, Major Gardner, United States Army; 
George W. McLean, Major of the Old Guard ; County Auditor Earle, Col. 



50 Commemoration of the 

Clarke and Lieut. Col. Fitzgerald, of the Seventh Regiment, and Hosea 13. Per- 
kins. The orator of the day was Hon. John Jay, who in eloquent terms told the 
story of the American triumph on Harlem Plains, and inculcated the virtue of 
patriotism ; while a few words, magnetic, however, in their effect, were addressed 
to the assemblage by Rev. Ur. Storrs, of Brooklyn. 



From the Eveni.ng Tei.eckam of September i6, 1S76. 

"This afternoon the one hundredth anniversary of the battle of HarJem 
Plains was celebrated on the very ground where the action took place. On 
Thursday afternoon the Telegram gave a resume o{ the leading features in that 
brilliant engagement, and therefore no necessity exists for our now referring to 
them save in a general way. The locality where the battle was fought lies be- 
tween noth and 125th streets, and between Ninth and Tenth avenues, and is one 
of the very few places which is botli near the heart of New York City and cele- 
brated in the history of the American Revolution. For the celebration of this 
event the day did not dawn as auspiciously as could have been desired. The 
sunshine :lternated too frequently with shadow, and a rainstorm seemed imminent. 
The arrangements, however, were made with sense and taste, and carried out in a 
spirit of good discipline. The plateau upon which the exercises were held is 
nearly five hundred feet long, and lies between Riverside Park and Harlem Lane. 
Here a platform and music stand were erected, and tents were pitched for the 
accommodation of guests. The whole place was alive with flags and gay with 
bunting. An inmiense concourse of people were present. These came in car- 
riages, on foot, by the Second, Third, and Eighth avenue cars, and by the 
Elevated and the Harlem railroads. At the intersection of 118th street and 
Tenth avenue a carriage-way and a station for teams. Opposite this carriage-way 
the Seventh Regiment took its stand. The platform was occupied by tlie mem- 
bers of the New York Historical Society (among whom are to be foimd some of 
the most cultured gentlemen of New York), Mayor Wickham, various city 
authorities, and a number of invited guests, and the orator of the day, the Hon. 
John Jay. This gentleman is the grandson of John Jay, the first Chief- Justice of 
the United States. He is now in the prime of his physical and mental powers, 
and by descent, by wise scholarship, by reverence for historical traditions, and by 
a rare gift of eloquence, he is peculiarly fitted for the grateful task which devolved 
upon liim. These qualifications were recognized by the vast assembly, for when 
Mr. Jay came forward he was received with loud and long reverberating 
applause. After a brief but felicitous preface, he defined the real importance of 
the battle or skirmish known as that of Harlem Plains. He touched U]ion the 
defeat which the Americans had experienced in Brooklyn on August 27th, on the 
subsequent evacuation of New York, and on the final landing of Howe near Kip's 
Bay, three miles from the city. He gave a magnificent view of the gallant con- 
duct of Wasliington, who, reiluced to desperation by what he thought the coward- 
y conduct of his troops, perilled his life by rushing madly into action. He de- 
cribed how, on September 16, 1776, exactly a hundred years ago, the advanced 
guard of the American line had been ilriven in by a superior English force. 



Battle of Harlem Plains. 5 1 

Washington detevmined to attack in front, as a feint to draw the enemy down, 
while Col. Knowlton, gaining the high rocks on the Hudson River side, would 
attack in the rear. Finally, the orator, in a burst of impassioned rhetoric, 
related how the English were driven from their successive positions, and took 
shelter behind a fence about two hundred yards distant, where they were rein- 
forced by a body of Hessians. Mr. Jay drew several brilliant and thrilling 
pictures complimentary to the patriotic fidelity of the American forces. While 
doing this, however, he carefully avoided bombast and spread-eagleism. His 
speech was a fitting embodiment of the centennial spirit, devoid of everytliing 
like turgidity and ranting. The whole affair was one of the most thrilling and 
picturesque of the many commemorations this season has drawn forth. The 
music, the speech, the applause, the flowers, the green sward, tlie ripe foliage, the 
waving handkerchiefs, the equipages, the superb toilets, the gay military trap- 
pings, and the beautiful national flags waving over all, made up a scene not soon 
to be forgotten." 



From the New York Her.\ld of September 17, 1S76. 

"Yesterday, at one o'clock, there was a meeting of the Committee of Recep- 
tion of the Historical Society of the State of New York, at the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel. The guests received were Governor Henry Lippitt, of Rhode Island ; 
Colonel Charles Warren Lippitt, chief of the personal staff; Colonel Edward 
Eames, Colonel Theodore M. Cook, General Heber Lefavour, Adjutant-General 
of the State, and Colonel Jabers C. Knight, Paymaster-General. The reunion, 
it is hardly necessary to state, was for the purpose of arranging the proceedings to 
take place later in the day, on the site of the battle of Harlem Plains, on which 
historic spot Hon. John Jay was to deliver an oration. 

" On arriving at the place of celebration, a scene of unrivalled beauty was 
unfolded. Upon a large plateau upon the edge of a bluff extending from 115th to 
125th street, were erected two large covered platforms, festooned in an elaborate 
manner with American flags ; tents were pitched upon the ground, from which 
floated the national colors ; the fences and trees were likewise decorated, and 
from every point — not excepting the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum — there seemed 
to be a spontaneous display of red, wliite, and blue. In front stretched the low- 
lands, now teeming rich with the autumnal vegetation ; to the left, the low brick 
houses of Harlem, seeming almost a phototype of that ancient city in Holland 
fi'om which it takes its name. Far in the distance the sparkling waters of Long 
Island Sound laved the dim shores; and, city-ward, the spiies of the churches 
pierced the dull September sky like lances. The only glittering object, however, 
shining through the ether W'as the great Cathedral in distant Fifth avenue, whose 
marble fretwork seemed to be mirrored against the heavens and reflect its glory 
on the landscape. In gazing westward the winding Hudson was seen washing the 
feet of the Palisades, and, way beyond, steamers were plying from shore to shore 
as peacefully as if never battles had been lost or won. 

"About three o'clock the Historical Society arrived upon the ground and took 
possession of the main stand. They were accompanied by the following gentle- 
men: Governor Lippitt and staff, Mayor W. H. Wickham, Charles O'Conor, 



$2 Coinmciiioration of the Battle of Harlem Plains. 

Judge Laneniorc, ex-Mayor Tiemann, Major Gardner, United Stales Army ; 
Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, General Kilbourne Knox, Senator Beekman, Colonel 
Warner, Major George W. McLean, of the "Old CJuard;" Rev. Dr. Richard 
S. Storrs, Rev. Dr. .\danis, ex-Commissioner Van Nort, County Auditor Karle, 
James Russell Lowell. IJenjamin IL Field, Hosea B. Perkins, Fordham Morris, 
Henry A. Oakley, G. IL Moore, and F. de Peyster." 



COMMEMORATION. 



BATTLE OF HARLEM PLAINS 



U\l. lirXDRKDlil ANNI\'b:R.SARV 



i\i:\V YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



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